Abstract
This chapter argues that while in certain cases, self-injuring behavior can be considered adaptive, when the self-harmer has a background of severe and prolonged trauma , the self-injuring behavior is based on the mechanism of body-disownership.
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Notes
- 1.
Certainly, the use of the word “ideology” in the case of a father raping his daughter is problematic. Yet from the victim’s perspective, this is an ideology resembling that of other cases of ethnic-based trauma.
- 2.
As was noted, at a certain stage, she tried to kill her own baby. It appears that turning the anger inward also serves to protect the baby.
- 3.
We are aware of the problematic nature of this word in this context.
- 4.
We chose these and other similar testimonies, even though they are not compatible with the phenomenological approach. As Appendix 1 notes, the phenomenological approach rejects testimonies which attempt to provide explanations and justifications (e.g., use of the word “because”). Nevertheless, it is difficult to find phenomenological studies that examine self-injuring behavior . We therefore felt that compromise was necessary, at least on this point.
- 5.
Clearly, this is not true in all cases: “I see what is happening, I experience the cutting and the bleeding, but I feel no pain and I cannot stop the actions” (Sutton, 2007, p. 220).
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Ataria, Y. (2018). Self-Injuring Behavior. In: Body Disownership in Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95366-0_6
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